Two Pilots & an LSW: Oops

Sorry, I got so busy and was out so late and was so tired that I didn't get anything caught up, including this.

Tuesday was a super busy day. I was up at 5:30 in the morning, and took Nick R. to Ohio State University for a meeting he had over there. We were there until 11 am, and then I flew him back home, back by noon. I grabbed some lunch, and started BOB up for the first engine run. It was successful, we tweaked a few things, and then we cowled it back up and sat and waited for the paperwork to come through so that I could do the official test flight. I only had until 4:15, and then I had to be ready to go to Kentucky in the Cheyenne. The paperwork didn't come through, so the guys who had been sitting around waiting went ahead and pushed everything away, we got the Cheyenne out, and then Kevin and I took off and went to Lafayette, picked up the Coach, and then flew on down to Paducah, Kentucky. We had a 50 knot headwind all the way down, battled our way there.

Both us and the coach had our own cars, so Kevin and I took ours into town and went to Doe's Eat Place in downtown. I had a 10 oz filet medium rare and a chocolate 'cobbler' that was ooey and gooey and quite tasty. Then we drove into a nearby town where the coach was recruiting a high school player. We've seen this kid twice with him. He really wants to sign the kid to Purdue. He's an excellent player but he's also a super responsible, good kid. This coach doesn't like to recruit the top players who are messes in their personal life. He likes to go for the ones who are talented AND have their heads on straight. Seems wise to me.

Anyway, we finished watching the game, and then went back to the airport, got in the Cheyenne at 10 pm, and headed for Lafayette in the rain. Up on top it was decent weather, and with the tailwind in our favor now, it was like a 38 minute flight. lol Dropped off the coach, then Kevin and I flew back to Kokomo. I got the plane put away and got home close to 1 am. I couldn't sleep right away, so it was closer to 2 before I passed out.

I woke back up at 7:30 am Wednesday morning in the hopes that I could go out and fly BOB. I was tired and a little groggy from the day before, but ready to go anyway. The paperwork still wasn't in, so we waited around the airport for most of the day. The weather was great, so I took up the new-to-us Citabria I'm going to call Sunshine, even though I don't normally name airplanes. I went up and just got a feel for it. A little stiff on the ailerons, throttle idle set a little too high, tire pressures a little low, and everything else was great. I did some steep turns, stalls, messing around, and then did some takeoffs and landings. The usual. Three point, wheel, one-wheel, engine out. Came in and had someone add air to the tires. Another couple hours later, and the paperwork was done and it was time to fly BOB.

I took my time on the run-up, of course. On takeoff they wanted to know several things, the fuel and oil pressure, the throttle and prop indications and lever positions, airspeed indicator accuracies, etc. Takeoff is a busy time anyway, especially in that airplane. I took a photo of the panel on takeoff roll, but it was really a video, so I have 5 minutes of video of the seat after I dropped the phone after the "photo". I stayed low enough to get cellphone reception, about 2000-2500', so I could text responses to answers to their maintenance questions as I was going. The mission was to stay close to the airport in case anything happened, and at least get one hour in. If anything needed tweaked, I'd land. If not, I'd continue with the engine break-in. That required hard high power settings and non-stop operations. So I flew circles around the area for the first hour. Everything looked good, so Steve said to stay up as long as I could. I expanded a little bit, went down to Tipton, went over to Glenndale, went over by Greentown, and circled around for 2.5 hours. At one point I was less tense that something was going to go wrong, so I started trying to write in the sky. I tried to write "hi" on ADS-B. It did not go well. It's like trying to write on an etch-a-sketch with one knob. lol

At the end of my 2.5 hours in the air, I was running light on fuel, and I started getting texts from Jon, our maintenance guy, who was up at the FBO along with the counter worker. Apparently there was a construction site just a couple miles from the airport, and the supervisor there was calling, upset and angry that an airplane was flying too low over their site, dive-bombing them. He said they have a 350' crane and a drone that flies 500' above that, and that I was flying at 500' over them. He's also calling the FAA and insisting on a "no fly zone" over their site, and to report me. They took photos of me to 'prove' how low I was, and then drove out to the airport to sit in their car, pull up to the gate and take photos of me taxiing by, and photos of me putting the plane away to prove it's me, etc. I saw them there. When they went inside to tell the FBO guys and Jon that, they tried to tell him that I was at legal altitudes and what I was doing, but he just stayed agitated and wouldn't listen. So many things to unpack here. 1) I was not flying at 500'. 2) If I was dive bombing them, I assure them there would be no question as to what was happening. 3) There were no NOTAMs for cranes or drones within 2 miles of the airport. 4) A 350' crane would DEFINITELY require a light and a NOTAM. Anything over 200' does. 5) I have ADS-B on board, which means I can prove I didn't go below 1000' AGL, legal altitudes over their area. 6) They're calling the FAA on me? Great. 7) They want a no-fly zone over their construction site? Good luck with that one.

I went back to my ADS-B track and looked it over carefully, and indeed, I was not below legal altitudes anywhere near them. I did come down over Glenndale Airport, but that's it. So I wrote up a thing and Steve sent it to a guy we know in the FAA in Indy, along with a screen shot of Kokomo's current NOTAMs, which shows that there is nothing about high cranes or drones near the airport, and told him what the story was, and gave him my N# so he could see my track and altitudes for himself. For once the government tracking me defended me from a false accusation. Who'd have thunk it?! In the meantime, we also asked him about THEIR legality with regards to the crane and drone operations. They produced paperwork as a "See, told you so" to the airport manager, but in their paperwork, it said they couldn't put a crane higher than 200', and that they had to notify the FAA within 3 business days and issue a NOTAM before it went up, and after it was down, which they'd never done. They shot themselves in the foot with their own paperwork. And the drone regulations state that they cannot go above 400' above their structure, and not into Class E airspace, so 400' and 700' are their limits, if they even have drone certificates. The FAA asked Steve if WE wanted to file an official complaint and get them looked into. HAhahaha. He said no, though, because that's not who we are. I said "Maybe, why don't we wait and see how THEY go with this and then decide whether or not we'll sic the FAA on them back."

After all that, a different supervisor from that project came over in person to talk to Steve. He was friendly, and admitted he'd done some reading and asking, and that they were the ones who needed to do something different, and that we hadn't done anything wrong. He was nice, so Steve was nice, and showed him around our airplanes, told him a little history, and told him that we would attempt to be good neighbors and not fly over their site. Now their site is 2 miles from the airport so that's a little tough on some runways, but...hadn't been a problem before, probably won't be again. BOB is a large, heavy, twin-radial-engine prop plane operated at almost full power for engine break-in circling for an extended period of time all over. I'm sure it was annoying to them. Mostly it isn't like that. Had they called and POLITELY let us know they were there and that we were bothering them, I'd have (probably) moved. As it is now, I'm just tempted to take everything I have over the top of them at a legal altitude with unsynced props full forward. Maybe aerobatics. But I won't, because the second guy was nice and that'll probably be the end of it. But that was the adventure out of THAT little tale.

When they were sitting there in their car taking photos of me, I told Spencer that when we got done, I was going to go over there and talk to them. I locked up the hangar and went back outside and they had left. I was actually disappointed. I had been up for 20 hours the day before. I hadn't slept a lot. I'd worked a lot, I'd flown a lot. I was tired, dehydrated, and fatigued which is different than tired, and grumpy. I had done nothing wrong and had the FAA called on me. I was ready and willing to have that conversation with them however it may have gone. I was actually looking forward to it, in fact. So it's probably a good thing they left before I got there, honestly. As of now, it's probably over, so that's good.

I was so tired, but Steve and I went to Pastarrific for dinner, just to get out. We were eating, and when he went to pay, he didn't have his wallet. He looked at me but I didn't bring my purse. So we laughed, I sat there and very slowly finished eating, while he ran home and grabbed his wallet, and gave the waitress a huge tip to compensate.

I slept late and hard into this morning. The winds are howling, 50 knot wind gusts, no flying. I sent in the paperwork for BOB to the CAF, and it's now "Green" on our tracking site, and thus legal to fly, which is good, since I already did. ;) I contacted them about a problem I was having too, that said I wasn't cleared to fly personally, when I was. They fixed that too. Now everything is "green" and good to go.

I also had a dermatology appointment this morning. Just a regular check-up. I think it's so funny, you get in the room, and have a gown, and it's a race to get changed as fast as possible, because I wouldn't want them to walk in on me while I'm in the midst of getting naked, even though the next thing that happens is they look over your entire naked body. That's just lovely. "Take off everything but your underwear" then the first thing she does is say "take down your underwear so I can see your cheeks". Well hell. I just love this stuff. Not. But dang it, I am going to have things removed at some point, there's no way I avoid them with my history, and I don't want to die from some stupid minor skin cancer thing that spread and could have been stopped early. So I suffer the indignity. At least it's over in 10 minutes flat, and I don't spend much time looking at her face so if I run into her at Kroger hopefully we won't recognize each other.

With this high wind day, I also did the household stuff I usually do on Sunday, because this Sunday I'll be flying the T-6 with the Ft. Wayne guy. Saturday is going to Ohio to pick up an airplane, and flying the Anderson T-6 (that I don't like) on a test flight. Friday is taking the Coach down to Atlanta for the evening in the Cheyenne. Nice busy weekend. Oh, and there's some Superbowl game happening on Sunday too, and I'll watch after I get back from flying, but we're not die hards by any means. It'll just be us at home with a pizza. :)

Jon took these two photos after my first take-off